In the July 29 Viewpoints [Progress on housing affordability], Trustee Derek Eder compared the result of ending single-family zoning in Minneapolis with what he expected would happen if we ended single-family zoning in Oak Park: falling rents and building new multifamily units that created more affordable housing.
So I did some simple Google searches to compare Minneapolis with Oak Park. Minneapolis has a land area of 53.97 square miles. Oak Park has a land area of 4.7 square miles. Minneapolis has a population of 430,162. Oak Park has a population of 54,318. Minneapolis has a population density of 7,966 people per square mile. Oak Park has a population density of 11,614 people per square mile.
Minneapolis has vacant buildable land, including private infill lots listed on standard real estate markets and publicly owned parcels managed directly by the city across various neighborhoods that list for $20,000 to $60,000 depending on the neighborhood. Oak Park has virtually no vacant buildable land — except the ever present Mohr Concrete site.
The city of Minneapolis owns vacant lots across various neighborhoods and the sole purpose of these city-owned lots is to sell them to developers specifically to build affordable housing. Oak Park has no village-owned lots to sell to developers specifically to build affordable housing.
Minneapolis invests tens of millions of dollars into affordable housing annually through a mix of local funds, federal grants, and tax credits. For instance, the city recently put $14 million and nearly $18.5 million through its Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Federal funding for affording housing in Oak Park is typically allocated on a project-by-project basis through state-administered federal programs like Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) rather than a fixed annual direct block grant. For specific recent developments, federal and state tax credits have generated over $12 million for projects like the 36-unit Keystone Apartments, while local support is supplemented by the village’s own Housing Trust Fund.
My concern is that if Trustee Eder, and other trustees, are using data from Minneapolis and other such cities as a basis for eliminating single-family zoning in Oak Park, they are clearly trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. There is no basis in reality to think that if Oak Park followed the elimination of single-family zoning as was done in Minneapolis, or any other similarly situated city, it would result in a drop in rents and an explosion of affordable housing in Oak Park. As the facts stated above make clear, there are too many other variables that were actually responsible for the results set forth in Trustee Eder’s “One View.”
Can any of the trustees please provide the residents of Oak Park with some data on the effects of the elimination of single-family zoning on landlocked municipalities with no buildable land with a population of around 50,000 people living within a land area of approximately 5 miles?
It would be nice to know that somebody in Oak Park is making these monumental zoning decisions based on the facts on the ground in Oak Park.
Google searches:
Does Minneapolis have any vacant buildable land?
How physically big is Minneapolis?
How physically big is Oak Park IL?
How much federal money does Minneapolis receive for affordable housing?
How much federal money does Oak Park IL receive for affordable housing?
Alan Krause is an Oak Park resident.